Dec. 2, 2012

Screen shot of a photo posted of the Barstool Blackout Tour event held Oct. 19 at Memorial Auditorium in Burlington.

Written by

Free Press Staff Writer

What the emails say

An April 6 e-mail from Tom Zollo, a producer for Barstool Blackout, to Alan Campbell of Burlington’s Memorial Auditorium:Hey Alan, we’re ready to move forward with the contract and deposit, but I just wanted to bring something to your attention. Despite the fact that any venue that we’ve been to will attest to the fact that we put on safe smooth events, school administrators, especially in the New England area, generally hate us because they don;t like our website. It is not unlikely that at some point some from UVM administration may reach out to you regarding the event, possibly with the intention of pressuring you to keep it from happening. This is no way a reflection of the event, but instead is the result of feminist groups who think we objectify women and want to stop our concerts. Basically we need some assurance that once we’ve gone to contract, put tickets on sale and paid our deposit that we will not have the plug pulled. And if the concert is canceled by you we will be fully reimbursed for all contracts that we entered into with all our vendors for that night. Obviously we don’t anticipate this being an issue, but we need to protect ourselves just in case of a disaster scenario. Just figured we’d be upfront about it so everybody is on the same page. We are excited to move forward. Thanks Campbell’s response later that day:Tom, Thanks for the heads up. While UVM might be able to stop an event from happening on their campus, they have no jurisdiction over us, as the city of Burlington. We’ve had similar protests before surrounding the WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment) and the issue of whether or not their events foster violence. We even had some silent peaceful protestors with placards across the street during a couple of their events, but the shows went on. The worse thing that might happen is someone trying to make all of us look bad in the press, but we’ve weathered that sort of thing in the past.

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Burlington city officials received but ignored several expressions of concern about the possible problems it would face in hosting the Barstool Blackout party at Memorial Auditorium in October, records show. Some of the red flags came even from organizers and the dance event’s security detail.

Documents obtained by the Burlington Free Press through a public records request show city police considered shutting down the bash while it was in progress. There was concern about the crowding and the large number of young people under the influence of drugs and alcohol.

The night of mayhem led to 16 underage intoxicated persons being taken to detox or to Fletcher Allen Health Care, with some facing tickets or charges, and the city saying it would review in the future how events would be booked on city-owned property.

The email trail

Among the findings by the Burlington Free Press in its review of 294 pages of public records compiled by the city attorney’s office:

• The Barstool Blackout Tour operators had warned the city of Burlington in April that it would hear unfavorable comments, most likely from the University of Vermont, and be pressured to cancel the Oct. 19 show. The organizers maintained other sites will “attest to the fact that we put on safe, smooth events.”

• The city responded that UVM might be able to stop an event on campus, but the university has no jurisdiction over the city of Burlington. The city expressed confidence it could overcome any objections, citing past instances in which concerns and even protests arose over issues such as the sexist nature of World Wrestling Entertainment events.

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“The worse thing that might happen is someone trying to make all of us look bad in the press, but we’ve weathered that sort of thing in the past,” Alan Campbell, manager of Memorial Auditorium, emailed the Barstool promoters last spring.

• The Flynn Theater Box Office, which was selling the $28 tickets for the event in advance, sent the city a warning e-mail with links to two videos about past Barstool events. “Red flags have gone up on my end — their web site is a little inappropriate,” A.J. Fucile, the Flynn’s box office manager, wrote in a July 17 email to the city.

• Kevin W. Cheney, the president of Green Mountain Concert Services, which provides security, wrote to the city on July 31 to say, “I’m not finding much on them, but what I am finding is making we wary and I do believe we need a full boat of security for this event.” He put 34 people on duty.

Mayor Miro Weinberger said he did not learn about the crowding and underage drinking problems at Barstool until two days after the event when he got a phone message from a Burlington Free Press reporter. Parks and Recreation Director Jesse Bridges, who’d also been called by the reporter that Sunday, texted the mayor around the same time to provide him a heads up.

Subsequently, the mayor has asked his department heads to tell him when a major incident has occurred in the city.

“I would like to be brought in more quickly,” the mayor said in an interview last week.

The Barstool Blackout tour has caused ripples in other communities on issues ranging from underage drinking to objectification of women, many of whom dance in neon-colored, skimpy clothing.

'Intoxication and wildness'

Three days after the underage drinking problems in Burlington, Mayor Weinberger said at a news conference Monday that even cursory research of the organizers' website would have offered a heads-up that attendees would be encouraged to engage in "intoxication and wildness."

Most prominent on the BarstoolSports.com website and Facebook page are photos and videos of previous shows, highlighting the dance moves of college-aged women.

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The Burlington event came 10 months after South Burlington police dealt with 18 young men and women under the influence of drugs or alcohol when Barstool Blackout appeared at the Higher Ground nightclub for two nights.

Nonetheless, the Oct. 19 event went forward in Burlington, catching city officials by surprise when a significant public safety response was needed to cope with the large number of severely intoxicated individuals.

Fire Chief Seth Lasker had four firefighters at the concert. His department’s ambulance service responded for some of the heavily intoxicated patrons.

He said the crowd was supposed to be controlled by the event staff.

“I’m not sure how the train left the tracks,” Lasker said.

Neither is Alan Campbell, the Memorial Auditorium’s manager. While he’d written in that email last spring that Burlington had weathered criticism of prior events, Barstool Blackout turned out to be much different from other so-called electric dance music events at the Main Street building, he said in an interview.

For some reason, virtually all 2,500 people attending attempted to jam into the first floor of the Auditorium, instead of some people going to the balcony, which holds about 700, Campbell said.

“This is the first time I have seen that happen. It may have been because of the particular event,” said Campbell, who has managed the auditorium since 1995.

“We were just not expecting that nobody would be sitting upstairs,” Campbell said.

He said the high level of intoxication likely happened before the patrons got to the Auditorium. He said the beer vendor used by Memorial Auditorium reported only about $630 in sales that night. The city gets 28 percent of beer sales, he said.

Campbell defended his April 6 e-mail back to promoters that the city would not succumb to any pressure from UVM or elsewhere to cancel the event. He said his answer was focused on First Amendment issues. He said the city is limited on the restrictions it can place on speech.

City wouldn't say 'no'

The city staff was working under an old city policy and did not believe officials had a right to reject rental requests, Weinberger and Parks and Recreation Director Bridges said.

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“It was not their prerogative to say ‘no’ to any event,” Weinberger said about the policy that was in place when he took over City Hall in April.

“That’s changed,” said Bridges, who became the parks head three days after the Barstool party. He replaced Mari Steinbach after the mayor said he wanted to go in a new direction.

Bridges said under the new policy, a city staff member booking an event will be expected to conduct a background check about the performance and promoter. The policy requires the staff member to check on past performances for safety at other venues, websites and social media presence and other public interactions. He said a superintendent or director must give final approval for an event.

According to Alan Campbell, the Auditorium manager, the city’s new rental policy allows for more discussion about what types of events the city wants to host. He said his boss, Bridges, will be notified about all groups booking the auditorium.

Campbell, who says he is retiring March 1, said some longtime requests will remain routine like the Vermont Golden Gloves boxing and craft fairs. He expects others, including one-time rentals, will undergo more scrutiny.

Bridges, the parks and recreation director, said besides allowing the city to reject rental requests, the policy includes a disclaimer by the city of Burlington that it does not endorse or condone any of the events or programs at a city facility.

“It will be a common sense policy,” said Weinberger, noting the increased scrutiny of rental applications by city staff. “If there was a similar series of red flags, I would certainly hope we would reach a different outcome.”

Never again?

Most of the public records turned over to the Free Press cover e-mails both before and after the party. The package also included heavily redacted police reports and some fire department reports.

The records confirm a comment by Weinberger that Barstool had asked before the Oct. 19 event to have a second concert in Burlington this winter.

The records show in late July the organizers had asked the city about possible dates for a return engagement in February 2013. The city put a “hold” on five dates in February in a July 26 e-mail response to Paul Gulczynski of Barstool.

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Mayor Weinberger says he has since vetoed the return of Barstool.

To ensure the the city does not face a similar incident, Weinberger wrote three department heads and two aides about “Going forward from here” in an e-mail Oct. 22. The email solicits policy ideas and also asks City Attorney Eileen M. Blackwood for legal advice. The city did not release any of the responses.

The records also give insight into the Weinberger administration’s efforts to fashion a message in the days after the Barstool concert. The mayor sent an email to Burlington attorney Eric Miller, to political consultant Andrew Savage and to aide Michael Kanarick asking for feedback on a statement from the event promoter on Oct. 23.

David Portnoy, the road show’s president, had gone online that day with harsh criticism of Weinberger, calling him an “out-of-touch, power hungry lunatic” and a “hayseed.”

On his Twitter feed, Portnoy asked the mayor, “What’s your problem bro? You just created a very powerful enemy my friend.”

The city in its public records response did not provide any responses to the mayor from Miller, Savage or Kanarick. Weinberger declined interview requests by the Free Press and other media outlets who were asking him about Portnoy’s comments.

The mayor’s office eventually issued a three-sentence statement. Weinberger said he would not respond to the comments and that Barstool’s “shortcomings speak for themselves.” He also promised to follow through on a new policy for renting city spaces.

The city maintained that withholding those records was allowed under state law, which exempts “records concerning formulation of policy where such would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of privacy, if disclosed.” The city also said inter-departmental and intra-departmental communications are exempt from disclosure.

The city also cited other exemptions for withholding records reflecting the identities of the persons detoxed and their medical information, which was collected by Burlington Rescue.

For all the headaches that Barstool Blackout caused the city, the concert wasn’t an unhappy night for everyone. City records show the event was profitable for the promoter, Purple Starfish Productions of Massachusetts. The Blackout bash took home $41,598 after organizers paid the city its rental fee — $18,452.